Is it necessary to verify a backup?

For people who verify, how often do you find a error?

Is there a better way to verify than with Ghost "verify recovery point" checked in the backup job?

FromNashville

Just adding my *two cents worth*....

I always validate or verify an image file immediately after creating an image.  (I am still using Ghost 2003, and you have to select the verify function after the image is created....you can not include that in the initial setup procedure as can be done with the more recent Ghost programs.)

You certainly can wait until it's time to restore the image, as Brian has mentioned above (and if you are over-writing a functional OS with the restore, even if you validated at the time of creation, it is probably a good idea to re-validate before over-writing that functional OS drive), but it is far *too late* if you never determined if the image file validates at the time of creation.

An invalid image is an invalid image no matter when it occurred, and you can not use it!

Personally, I have always had a backup HDD on the shelf that I use to restore my image to and confirm that I get a valid copy that is functional before I over-write to my current in use OS HDD.  Yes, it takes more time--but ending up with a invalid image over-writing your current OS so that it is no longer functional--well, that takes a lot more time to recover from.......!

(I thought about what I just wrote above....and it didn't come out quite right--so here's the rest of the story.....

I do the above on any system that's *new* and I've never tested doing an OS restore before.  I use a spare HDD to validate that the software and hardware all work as planned.  Once I know that a valid image file will restore correctly on my system without errors, I then am confident that I can restore valid images to my current *production* HDD without too much concern that it will not work.  And, the spare HDD is available for immediate replacement if a HDD failure occurs.

So, hopefully that makes more sense!)